Page 40 of Mafia King’s Broken Vow (New York Bratva #5)

THE MAN IN THE MIRROR

YAKOV

T he morning air carries a hint of spring, crisp and clean against my skin as I watch the light play across Mila’s face.

Her presence here, beside me, still seems impossible sometimes.

The Bratva insists she remain until they’re certain Pablo’s capture hasn’t triggered retaliation from his uncle’s organization.

“Precautionary,” Nikolai called it, though we both know it’s an excuse that serves everyone’s interests—including ours.

She sits across from me on the terrace, steam rising from her coffee cup, her dark hair catching the sunlight in ways that make my fingers itch to touch it.

I shouldn’t be allowed this, these quiet moments outside my gilded prison, this semblance of normalcy with a woman who should have run from me the moment she understood what I am.

And yet, here we are.

“You’re staring,” she says, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth without looking up from her cup. Those perceptive eyes miss nothing, not even when she pretends otherwise.

“I’m observing,” I correct her, allowing myself the ghost of a smile. “Old habits.”

Now she glances up, meeting my stare with that unflinching directness that first drew me to her. No fear. Only clarity and warmth that makes my chest tighten.

“Observations worth sharing?” she asks, the professional distance we once maintained dissolving further with each passing day.

Officially, she transferred my case, but the Bratva’s request for her to continue overrode protocol.

They trust her, and trust doesn’t come easily in my world.

These coffee meetings masquerade as therapy sessions, but we both know they’re becoming something more honest than our formal appointments ever were.

“You slept poorly,” I say, noting the slight shadows beneath her eyes, the tension she carries in her shoulders. “Bad dreams?”

She considers lying—I see the impulse flash across her features—then chooses honesty instead. “Different ones. The dream about my mother…it’s gone. Now it’s Pablo.”

The name sends a familiar surge of cold rage through me, though I keep my expression neutral. “He’s secured. He can’t reach you now.”

“I know. And I know it’s been a week.” She sets her cup down, fingers tracing the rim absently. “That’s not what keeps me awake.”

I wait, giving her space to continue. Another change in me, this new patience that I’m still learning to navigate. The old Yakov would’ve pressed, demanded control. The man I’m becoming waits for her trust.

“I keep thinking about what happened in that alley,” she says finally. “About the moment when you had him at your mercy. Before Aleks arrived.”

The memory surfaces with crystal clarity—Pablo before me, blood streaming from his broken nose, my hand at his throat. The perfect positioning for a kill I’ve executed countless times. The hunger to eliminate the threat permanently vibrating through every muscle.

And yet I hadn’t.

“You could’ve killed him,” Mila continues, her voice soft against the morning quiet. “You wanted to. I saw it in your eyes.”

“Yes,” I admit. There’s no point denying what she witnessed firsthand. “I wanted to.”

“But you didn’t.” Her gaze holds mine, searching for something. “Why?”

It’s a question I’ve asked myself in the darkness of my room, in the quiet moments when strategy and calculation give way to something more unsettling.

More human. I could offer her the tactical explanation, that keeping Pablo alive gave us leverage with the cartel, that killing him would have escalated tensions beyond repair. All true, but incomplete.

“I wanted to,” I repeat, needing her to understand the full truth. “My instinct was to eliminate the threat permanently. To ensure he could never touch you again.”

I take a slow sip of my coffee, organizing thoughts I’ve never put into words. Mila waits with that patient stillness, giving me space to find the language for concepts I’m only beginning to understand.

“When I first went after the Sokolovs, after Ana died, vengeance was pure. Simple.” I pause, remembering that clarity. “Vengeance was all that mattered.”

Mila leans forward slightly, her focus absolute. Not the clinical observation of a therapist, but the genuine interest of someone who cares. The distinction still unsettles me even as I crave it.

“And now?” she prompts when I fall silent.

I look past her to the gardens beyond the terrace, considering my answer. “Now nothing is simple. When I had Pablo at my mercy, I wanted to kill him, not for strategic advantage, but because he threatened you. Because the thought of him existing in a world where you exist was intolerable.”

Her breath catches, a sound so slight most wouldn’t notice. But nothing about her escapes my attention.

“When I looked at you,” I continue, returning my gaze to hers, “I saw something in your eyes I couldn’t bear to lose.”

“What?” she whispers.

“Hope,” I say simply. “Hope that I could be more than this criminal. That there might be a man worth salvaging beneath the calculation and violence. And I knew that if I killed Pablo in that moment, something of that hope would die with him.”

The admission costs me, exposing vulnerabilities I’ve spent years eradicating. Yet, with Mila, the cost seems worth paying.

“It wasn’t just for you,” I add, needing her to understand the full picture. “If it were only that, it would be another form of manipulation—being what you need to keep your favor. It was for me, too.”

She waits, and I continue. “I’m tired of death,” I admit. “Tired of the emptiness that follows vengeance. When Ana died, I let everything else die with her—compassion, restraint, humanity. I became the blade that would cut out my pain by inflicting it on others.”

My thumb traces patterns across her palm that make her breath hitch. “What if I make the wrong choice next time?” I ask,

“Then you try again,” she says simply. “That’s all any of us can do.”

The sincerity in her voice, the unwavering belief in her eyes, it undoes me. This woman who’s seen the worst of me yet believes in better. Not naively, not blindly, but with a clear-eyed acceptance of both who I’ve been and who I might become.

I run a hand through my hair, frustrated by my inability to articulate this properly. “Killing Pablo would’ve been easy. Choosing not to, that was harder. But it was mine. Not strategy or manipulation. A choice to become better.”

Mila’s expression shifts, softening into what makes my pulse quicken. She reaches across the table, her hand settling over mine.

“That’s growth, Yakov. Not perfection, just better decisions, one at a time.”

Her touch burns against my skin, innocent yet intimate in ways that make desire coil tight in my gut. I turn my hand beneath hers, fingers threading together, watching as her pupils dilate

“Why do you look at me like that?” I ask, unable to stop myself.

A hint of color touches her cheeks. “Like what?”

“Like I’m worth the risk,” I say, the words emerging raw and unguarded. “Like I’m more than the sum of my crimes.”

Her fingers tighten around mine, and something shifts in her expression, a decision made, a boundary crossed.

“Because you are,” she says quietly. “To me.”

Three simple words that strike deeper than any weapon. The implication hangs between us, charged with everything unspoken, everything we’ve been circling for weeks.

“Mila,” I begin, her name a warning and a prayer in my mouth.

“I know what I’m saying,” she interrupts, that stubborn determination flashing in her eyes. “I know the cost. I’ve analyzed it from every angle because that’s what I do.”

“And?” I press, needing to hear her speak the truth we’ve both been avoiding.

“And despite everything logical and rational,” she continues, her thumb tracing fire across my knuckles, “despite your past and my professional ethics and all the reasons this shouldn’t happen…I choose you,” she repeats, unflinching. “All of you, Yakov. Even the parts that aren’t easy to love.”

The confession steals my breath. I should discourage her. Should remind her of the danger, the impossibility, the thousand reasons why linking herself to me can only end in pain.

Instead, I find myself rising, moving around the table without releasing her hand, drawn by something stronger than logic. I pull her to her feet, eliminating the last barrier between us.

“Say it again,” I demand, voice dropping to a whisper as I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, fingers lingering against the warmth of her skin.

“I choose you,” she says, unflinching as always, her body swaying slightly toward mine as if drawn by the same force.

Heat floods through me, desire and something far more dangerous tangling together until I can’t separate them.

“I don’t deserve this,” I tell her, even as my hands move to frame her face, thumbs tracing the delicate line of her jaw. “Don’t deserve you.”

“It’s not about deserving,” she says, her hands sliding up my chest to rest over my heart, which beats too fast, too hard beneath her touch. “It’s about choice. And I’ve made mine.”

Her lips part, an invitation I can’t refuse. I claim her mouth with mine, tasting coffee and desire and possibility on her tongue. She responds immediately, arms winding around my neck, body pressing against me with an urgency that matches my own.

The kiss deepens, growing desperate as months of restraint and carefully maintained boundaries dissolve into need. My hands slide down her back, pulling her hips in. Her soft gasp vibrates against my lips, sending a surge of heat through me.

“We’re outside,” she whispers, even as her fingers thread through my hair, keeping me close. “The guards?—”

“Let them watch,” I growl against her throat, teeth grazing the sensitive skin there, feeling her pulse race beneath my lips. “Let everyone see that you’re mine.”

She pulls back just enough to meet my gaze, her eyes dark with desire but clear with purpose. “And you’re mine,” she says, not a question but a claim. “Remember that, Yakov. This goes both ways.”

The declaration—so simple, so profound in its implications—steals what little restraint I have left. I want to take her here, now, claim her in ways that leave no doubt about what burns between us.

“Tonight,” I promise against her lips. “My room.”

Her smile against my mouth is answer enough. When we finally separate, both breathing harder, her hair slightly mussed from my hands, cheeks flushed with desire, I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.

“We should finish our coffee,” she says, practicality reasserting itself though her eyes still burn with promises of what will come later. “Before it gets cold.”

I follow her back to our chairs, though I position mine closer to hers, unwilling to surrender the connection between us. As we resume our conversation, discussing lighter topics with the ease of those who understand each other deeply, I find myself experiencing something I’d thought lost forever.

Hope. Not just for freedom or redemption or survival. But for a future worth building. A life worth living. A love worth every risk it entails.

And for the first time since I held Ana as she died, I allow myself to believe that such a future might be possible, not despite who I am, but because of who I’m becoming with Mila beside me.

One choice at a time.